College Football Attendance

[twalsh]

I know this has been referenced a couple times recently. Good article about it from Sports Illustrated.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/01/10/college-football-attendance-decline-ncaa

 

[NDSMC78]

I read this article the other day. There are a number of reasons why attendance is down. One huge reason is TV. The conferences and schools have sold their souls to ESPN, NBC, and others. In the case of ND, all quality opponents are night games. If you want to go to a game played in the daytime, you will get a steady diet of Navy, BC, Wake Forest or some MAC foe. The games take too long. It shouldn't take four plus hours to play a football game. The TV timeouts destroy the flow of the game.
Last night, the game started at 7:00 p.m. CST. The third quarter ended at 10:30 CST. I did not stay up to watch the fourth quarter. All of the kids in South Carolina and Louisiana, who follow Clemson and LSU, have school today. As a result of that, many of them couldn't stay up to watch the end of the game. The game ended after midnight eastern time. The selling out to TV is going to cost the game a lot in the long run.

 

[irishalice]

I read this article the other day. There are a number of reasons why attendance is down. One huge reason is TV. The conferences and schools have sold their souls to ESPN, NBC, and others. In the case of ND, all quality opponents are night games. If you want to go to a game played in the daytime, you will get a steady diet of Navy, BC, Wake Forest or some MAC foe. The games take too long. It shouldn't take four plus hours to play a football game. The TV timeouts destroy the flow of the game.
Last night, the game started at 7:00 p.m. CST. The third quarter ended at 10:30 CST. I did not stay up to watch the fourth quarter. All of the kids in South Carolina and Louisiana, who follow Clemson and LSU, have school today. As a result of that, many of them couldn't stay up to watch the end of the game. The game ended after midnight eastern time. The selling out to TV is going to cost the game a lot in the long run.

I agree with the above but also the cost of attending a game is ridiculously high to me.

 

[88ND]

I agree with the above but also the cost of attending a game is ridiculously high to me.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The economics...BAD economics...
of it have made it a pipe dream for many fans.

The faithful season ticket holder will keep on a keeping on. But the 20k or more allocation of vendor sales is the killer.

Every game there are countless of fans going to "their first game."

That's just not as feasible as it once was.

The bigger problem is I don't think they care. The TV money is so over the top gigantic they can ignore 5 or 8 thousand unsold tickets.

They should be ashamed of themselves for having blocks and blocks of empty seats.

 

[NDSMC78]

I agree with the above but also the cost of attending a game is ridiculously high to me.

I agree----price is another huge factor. Tickets are expensive and when you throw in things like parking and concession stands, the whole thing gets to be too much.

 

[Catholicfan95]

I agree----price is another huge factor. Tickets are expensive and when you throw in things like parking and concession stands, the whole thing gets to be too much.

It costs a family of 4 nearly $400 to attend a game (rough estimation)

 

[twalsh]

It costs a family of 4 nearly $400 to attend a game (rough estimation)

You'd need to be on the real economy plan to do an ND game at $100 a head. From a practical perspective, almost impossible.

 

[DieHard_Irish]

It costs a family of 4 nearly $400 to attend a game (rough estimation)

Try $1200 for my 4 tickets to the ND vs UGA 2 years ago. And those tickets were at face value. I take my 3 kids out to a game each year, and it's a $3k weekend

 

[irishalice]

I agree ----price is another huge factor. Tickets are expensive and when you throw in things like parking and concession stands, the whole thing gets to be too much.

I live 268 miles southwest of South Bend so there's also the cost of lodging, food, and gas besides the gameday expenses. I think ticket prices are just absurd. I was curious about the price Vivid Seats had the ND/Clemson tickets listed for and they are over 400 bucks ten months away from gameday and without any actual 2020 ND football tickets released for sale.

 

[NDSMC78]

I live 268 miles southwest of South Bend so there's also the cost of lodging, food, and gas besides the gameday expenses. I think ticket prices are just absurd. I was curious about the price Vivid Seats had the ND/Clemson tickets listed for and they are over 400 bucks ten months away from gameday and without any actual 2020 ND football tickets released for sale.

I can appreciate that. I live three hours from ND, and refuse to pay the exorbitant South Bend hotel rates. As a result, night games are out for me. So I end up going only to games where ND plays lesser opponents.

 

[twalsh]

Try $1200 for my 4 tickets to the ND vs UGA 2 years ago. And those tickets were at face value. I take my 3 kids out to a game each year, and it's a $3k weekend

For my wife and me, mid to high level game:

2 RT tix to Midway - $600
Rental car and gas - $125 (use Hotwire get great deals)
Two night hotel plus taxes - $600
Two game tix - $250
Parking Eddy Commons - $80
Bookstore Stuff - $200
Meals - $250
Misc - $250
Total - $2,355

That's without anything special involved.

 

[deadprez3]

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The economics...BAD economics...
of it have made it a pipe dream for many fans.

The faithful season ticket holder will keep on a keeping on. But the 20k or more allocation of vendor sales is the killer.

Every game there are countless of fans going to "their first game."

That's just not as feasible as it once was.

The bigger problem is I don't think they care. The TV money is so over the top gigantic they can ignore 5 or 8 thousand unsold tickets.

They should be ashamed of themselves for having blocks and blocks of empty seats.

When corporate strategists find themselves in possession of a diminishing product for which however there remain a certain still interested sect, they will engage in the endeavor of "price gouging" that sect in admission to the current, but more alarming to them future, prospects of reduced revenues.

It is known as "bait and abate" to the indoctrinated on matters of commerce.

Funny, whom would have ever thought a religious, non for profit, organization ran by priests have so much in common with tobacco conglomerates?

Unfortunately for the priests, they have no other means for which to deploy their capital (as do the fine proprietors of Phillip Morris) for they needing to keep up appearances and such.

Such is how an organization may find itself to be sitting on $8 billion of retained earnings....err... sorry....I meant an $8 billion "endowment".

 

[raulduke_007]

The cold reality is that the overall College Football product is not good at the moment. Too many teams, too many locked in regional schedules. Too little parody.
The best way to fix it is to go a Top Tier 32 team system with 3 32 team lower Tier divisions. You have 4 relegation & promotion spots each year to allow programs to move up & down.
The 32 team system allows a more diverse competive schedules & multi top match ups each week in all divisions.
College football needs to have an actual legit playoff system with a contious season ending on Jan 1.

 

[NDSMC78]

The cold reality is that the overall College Football product is not good at the moment. Too many teams, too many locked in regional schedules. Too little parody.
The best way to fix it is to go a Top Tier 32 team system with 3 32 team lower Tier divisions. You have 4 relegation & promotion spots each year to allow programs to move up & down.
The 32 team system allows a more diverse competive schedules & multi top match ups each week in all divisions.
College football needs to have an actual legit playoff system with a contious season ending on Jan 1.

That sounds horrible. The regional differences in CFB are a big reason why it is a great sport. If I wanted to watch the NFL, I would watch the NFL.

 

[NDSMC78]

For my wife and me, mid to high level game:

2 RT tix to Midway - $600
Rental car and gas - $125 (use Hotwire get great deals)
Two night hotel plus taxes - $600
Two game tix - $250
Parking Eddy Commons - $80
Bookstore Stuff - $200
Meals - $250
Misc - $250
Total - $2,355

That's without anything special involved.

How do you go to the bookstore and get out of there spending $200 or less?

 

[twalsh]

The cold reality is that the overall College Football product is not good at the moment. Too many teams, too many locked in regional schedules. Too little parody.
The best way to fix it is to go a Top Tier 32 team system with 3 32 team lower Tier divisions. You have 4 relegation & promotion spots each year to allow programs to move up & down.
The 32 team system allows a more diverse competive schedules & multi top match ups each week in all divisions.
College football needs to have an actual legit playoff system with a contious season ending on Jan 1.

I applaud you. You managed to work your pet project into an unrelated thread.

 

[twalsh]

How do you go to the bookstore and get out of there spending $200 or less?

I buy zero for me. It's mostly kids and grandkids now, and I stay away from the expensive stuff.

 

[NDSMC78]

I buy zero for me. It's mostly kids and grandkids now, and I stay away from the expensive stuff.

I was not aware that anything inexpensive was sold at the bookstore.

 

[twalsh]

I was not aware that anything inexpensive was sold at the bookstore.

Anything made by Champion, and a few of the T-shirts and sweatshirts that have been around since we were in school. Forget any of the Under Armour or Peter Millar type of stuff.

 

[NDSMC78]

Anything made by Champion, and a few of the T-shirts and sweatshirts that have been around since we were in school. Forget any of the Under Armour or Peter Millar type of stuff.

If they are inexpensive, maybe they have physically been on the shelves since when we were in school. If they haven't sold in 40 years, they mark them down, I suppose.

 

[DieHard_Irish]

For my wife and me, mid to high level game:

2 RT tix to Midway - $600
Rental car and gas - $125 (use Hotwire get great deals)
Two night hotel plus taxes - $600
Two game tix - $250
Parking Eddy Commons - $80
Bookstore Stuff - $200
Meals - $250
Misc - $250
Total - $2,355

That's without anything special involved.

Exactly! and I'll venture to say $200 at the bookstore is conservative

 

[Golson5]

The cold reality is that the overall College Football product is not good at the moment. Too many teams, too many locked in regional schedules. Too little parody.
The best way to fix it is to go a Top Tier 32 team system with 3 32 team lower Tier divisions. You have 4 relegation & promotion spots each year to allow programs to move up & down.
The 32 team system allows a more diverse competive schedules & multi top match ups each week in all divisions.
College football needs to have an actual legit playoff system with a contious season ending on Jan 1.

That's terrible.

And CFB is a very good product